Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.
As season two of “The Pitt” begins – new episodes stream at 9 p.m. Thursday on HBO Max Jan. 8 through April 16.
It’s been 10 months since the events of season one.
It’s July 4, 2026, and Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) is about to leave on sabbatical (via motorcycle). Before that, he’s quick to clash with his replacement, Dr. Baran “Al” Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi). Robby’s also not thrilled that he didn’t get away before Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball) returned to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center from rehab.
Here’s where the show’s characters find themselves as season two begins.
Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch
After having a breakdown near the end of season one, Robby is working, but has he dealt with the trauma of the Pittfest mass shooting, not to mention his experience losing his mentor in covid?
“I don’t think so,” Wyle said in a December Zoom interview. “Not in any meaningful way. What we’ve seen is him recognize that he has to deal with something, but it’s got to be the right fit. … [There’s] one excuse after another while he’s preaching the exact opposite to his staff and advocating that they all make full use of all the mental health resources and stressing the importance of it.
“We watch him actively avoid that and instead, self-prescribe this curated trip to go on a vision quest, sight-seeing tour to get some distance and some perspective … that maybe he just needs a break,” Wyle continued. “I think it’s as much as he’s willing to accept at the moment, and everything else is slightly performative.”
Wyle said real doctors have told him it’s a lonely place to be.
“When you’re in a position of leadership and have to project a sense of confidence and competence to your staff and to your patients, and they know you to be the fountain of answers, and they know you to be the aspirational achievement of a career and an examined life, and you are none of those things,” Wyle said. “Internally, it is an extremely lonely place to be, and that’s why you see such high rates of suicide and drug addiction and alcoholism and divorce in these specialties, because it takes a personal toll, this professional endeavor.”
Outside playing the character, Wyle acknowledged he’s aware of the fan fiction some write about “The Pitt” characters, particularly slash fiction involving Robby and Whitaker (Gerran Howell).
“I get sent a lot of art of Gerran and me,” Wyle said, smiling. “Sometimes we’re cowboys and sometimes we’re in a hammock and sometimes we’re taking a nap or having a sandwich. But it doesn’t make us want to write a lot more scenes for Gerran and me!”
Dana Evans
Emmy-winner Katherine LaNasa compared filming “The Pitt” in Pittsburgh to a field trip.
“It was very bonding” for the cast, she said. “Fiona [Dourif] and I one day rented bikes and we went shopping. What’s that bougie shopping street?”
Pretty sure she’s referring to Walnut Street in Shadyside.
LaNasa’s nurse Dana Evans ended season one threatening to never return to the ER after getting assaulted by a patient. But Dana is back on shift in season two.
“Her whole sense of self is wrapped up in that place, and her whole sense of purpose and belonging,” LaNasa said. “It’s where she’s hid out from her own trauma for a lot of years. … I don’t think she knows what she is without that place, and I don’t think she’s yet prepared to find out.”
Frank Langdon
Near the end of season one, Robby wanted to fire Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball), who was caught stealing and abusing prescription drugs. Instead, Robby sent Langdon to rehab and it’s Langdon’s first day back at PTMC as season two begins.
“In season one, the audience is introduced to a Langdon who is very sure of himself, likes to have fun, is fairly irreverent, playful and zingy, and to give a lot of those traits away [in season two] is a scary process [as an actor],” Ball said. “Having spent the last 10 months going through rehab, he is fundamentally changed. He has a lot to atone for, and I think he’s probably a lot less sure of himself.”
Samira Mohan
Early in season two, Dr. Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) finds her phone rings constantly. It’s her mom calling.
“You get to see a different side of her,” Ganesh said of her character. “She’s so empathetic and patient-focused when it comes to her work, but then she somehow just doesn’t have that empathy for her mom.”
Mohan’s mother, who was widowed long ago, suddenly has a boyfriend and decides to leave New Jersey and travel the world, throwing a wrench in her daughter’s plans to return home to work.
“Samira is like, ‘Wait, what the hell, I thought it was just going to be the two of us? I planned my entire life around that. I planned my career around that,’ which is everything to her,” Ganesh said. “She’s scrambling and trying to figure out whether she has anything outside of her mom and her job to keep her in Pittsburgh. I don’t know if she’s going to be able to find a fellowship in Pittsburgh in time.”
Mel King
Dr. King (Taylor Dearden) is worried throughout season two. She’s been named in a malpractice suit – related to a season one case – and about to be deposed.
“The lawsuit in general means that they found something you did as a doctor suspect,” Dearden said. “Especially through these 10 months since we’ve last seen all of other characters, Mel has really gained a lot of confidence, and it just feels like today, of all days, it’s all coming crashing down. Having to somehow be as good a doctor as possible while her head is spinning with how she’s a terrible doctor [because of the lawsuit], but she’s still got patients to take care of, so it’s tough.”
Filming in Pittsburgh in September wasn’t Dearden’s first time in town.
“My cousin graduated from Carnegie Mellon, so I was there a very long time ago when he graduated,” Dearden said. “He will not enjoy me saying ‘a very long time ago,’ but it was. I just remember being so surprised about how hilly it was. It’s very like San Francisco with all the hills, in certain parts at least.”
Cassie McKay
Her ankle monitor now a distant memory, Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) feels more stability in season two than she’s felt in a while.
“This season’s journey is a little existential,” Dourif said. “It’s about self-care. Her life has been about taking care of other people in her work and at home and maybe now it’s time to think about what she wants her life to look like when she’s older.”
Trinity Santos
Prickly resident Dr. Santos (Isa Briones) was right in her suspicions about Langdon in season one, but will her dark suspicions about a patient’s care be accurate in season two?
“In the past, she has been proven right, and I think she can get ahead of herself a little bit,” Briones said.
And her co-workers aren’t praising her for bringing Langdon’s bad behavior to light.
“People are like, ‘We loved him, and now he’s gone, and it’s your fault,’ and they don’t know the full story,” Briones said. “She has been painted as a villain, and she’s sinking into that and just being like, ‘Sure, fine, I’ll be your villain,’ and that comes from a place of sadness. I think that is why she assumes the worst and assumes that there are villains out there, because she always feels like the villain.”
Dennis Whitaker
Santos and intern Dr. Whitaker (Gerran Howell) became roommates at the end of season one, which alters their dynamic in season two. And Whitaker gains confidence in himself and from Robby.
“It is still a teaching hospital, and there are other people he’s responsible for now, and I’m sure Robby is keeping even more of a keen eye on him,” Howell said.
“You’re the new golden boy,” Briones told Howell.
“But I don’t think Whitaker is aware of it,” Howell said. “He’s noticing that Robby is always trying to prop him up, so there’s a lot of pressure to be confident or at least appear confident.”
Victoria Javadi
In season two, student doctor Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) begins contemplating what kind of doctor she wants to be while continuing to work in the same hospital as her demanding parents.
“The root of the issue for Javadi is that I think she just wants her mom to love her,” Azeez said. “I don’t think she gets much evidence of that. I think she gets a lot of evidence that her mom wants her to succeed and wants to be proud of her. But you want your parents to be proud of you no matter what. … It’s really painful for your mother to be a fair-weather friend.”
Jack Abbot
Actor Shawn Hatosy won the best guest drama actor Emmy for his role as night shift attending Dr. Jack Abbot, who appeared at the beginning and end of season one.
For season two, he doesn’t show up until midway through the season and when he does, he’s clad in S.W.A.T. gear.
“He moonlights as a physician on a S.W.A.T. team, because sometimes they take a doctor with them in case something goes wrong and something does, and that’s what brings them in on the Fourth of July,” Hatosy explained. “It kind of puts into perspective when he says, ‘Oh, I was just at home listening to the police scanner,’ which is why he comes in during the mass casualty [in season one].”
Jesse Van Horn
Although not one of the main characters, Nurse Jesse Van Horn (Ned Brower) is a steady presence in the ER, and he’s played by the rare “Pitt” cast members with an actual background in medicine.
Brower began his career as a model, then he was an actor (“Dawson’s Creek” recurring guest role, the 2002 movie “Big fat Liar”) before joining the band Rooney, which gained popularity during “The O.C.” era.
Around 2012, Brower opted for a life change and began studying to become a nurse, the career field he was working in when he met Dr. Joe Sachs, a former “ER” writer who would go on to write for “The Pitt.” It was that connection that landed Brower on the series even as he continues to work as a nurse.
“He’s so adept at the physicality, because he does it vocationally,” Wyle said. “He’s an all-star to plug into the background for seamless continuity. And because he’s an actor who’s got real training, you could throw him a line, you could throw him a paragraph or a character moment, and he’s going to deliver.”
Wyle called Brower “a perfect example of somebody whose skill sets matches up with what “The Pitt” needs.
“And not to tease too much,” Wyle added, “[Jesse] becomes a rather significant character in the second half of the [second] season.”
Brower traveled to Pittsburgh to film in September for a blink-and-you’ll miss him appearance in the opening scene: As Robby walks up to the exterior door of the PTMC ER, Van Horn leans against the wall and nods at Robby in acknowledgement.
Brower, who grew up in Seattle, said he was thrilled to join primary cast on their Pittsburgh trip for on-location filming and even more excited to meet fans.
“The day we filmed in front of the hospital, we had all these health care workers coming out on the street in droves to sneak a peek,” Brower said. “Noah came walking through, and there [were] all these screaming women.”
Executive producer John Wells, who directed the season premiere, was watching from 10 feet away when one fan asked Wells if he could take a picture of her with Wyle.
“As they watch [Noah] walk down this little ramp, he walks right past me into a building to get his costume ready or whatever, and the [fans] see me, and they all start screaming,” Brower recalled. “They’re like, ‘It’s the other guy!’ which was hilarious. They recognized me from the show. And they’re like, ‘Could you take a picture [with us]?’ And John looks over at me and gives me this knowing smile and a small nod. So, I went and signed autographs, really on Noah’s behalf, but it was cute and made me feel good and made John laugh a little bit, I think.”
